• The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom, May 2003-January 2005 : on point II : transition to the new campaign by Donald P. Wright, Timothy R. Reese ; with the Contemporary Operations Study Team. June 2008 (720 pages, PDF, 104Mb). Also available in paper copy from GPO.

From the Combat Studies Institute web site:

On Point II is the US Army's first historical study of its campaign in Iraq in the decisive eighteen months following the overthrow of the Baathist regime in April 2003. The book examines both the high-level decisions that shaped military operations after May 2003 as well as the effects of those decisions on units and Soldiers who became responsible for conducting those operations.

The authors, historians at the US Army's Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, based this account on hundreds of interviews with key participants and thousands of primary documents. Critical chapters in this book address the decision to disband the Iraqi Army, detainee operations (including the incidents at the Abu Ghraib prison), reconstruction efforts, and the Army's response to the growing insurgency.

At the core of On Point II is the dramatic story of how after May 2003, the US Army reinvented itself by transforming into an organization capable of conducting a broad array of diverse and complex "Full Spectrum" operations. This was the new campaign that confronted American Soldiers beginning in May 2003 as they strived to create stability in Iraq.

See also: Occupation Plan for Iraq Faulted in Army History, by Michael R. Gordon, New York Times, June 29, 2008.

I always find it odd when news reports cite government documents without giving a link or good reference to them. It seems to me that this is something news web sites should do regularly. These reports are not always that easy to track down. Case in point: today's New York Times has a story about a Pentagon report:

• Iraq Spending Ignored Rules, Pentagon Says, By James Glanz, New York Times, May 23, 2008

A Pentagon audit of $8.2 billion in American taxpayer money spent by the United States Army on contractors in Iraq has found that almost none of the payments followed federal rules and that in some cases, contracts worth millions of dollars were paid for despite little or no record of what, if anything, was received.

Using Google to search on the title of the report plus "site:.gov" yields nothing this morning, although the report is available from two different government web sites.

The report is available at the site of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Committee Holds Hearing on Accountability Lapses in Multiple Funds for Iraq, Wednesday, May 21, 2008, along with other statements and documents.

• Internal Controls Over Payments Made in Iraq, Kuwait and Egypt, U.S. Defense Department, Office of the Inspector General, Report No. D-2008-098, (May 22, 2008).

It is also available at www.dodig.mil/audit/reports with this url: www.dodig.mil/audit/reports/fy08/08-098.pdf The same google search with "site:.mil" substituted for "site:.gov" finds the title in a May 22 "what's new" story on the home page www.dodig.osd.mil of the Office of the Inspector General.

This is the second report I have looked for this week that is available as a PDF document on a government web site that google has (evidently) not indexed full text. I do not know if this reflects a google policy or just a delay in indexing.

In an investigation on how the Bush administration uses retired military officers to promote its message on the Iraq war, the New York Times successfully sued the Defense Department to gain access to 8,000 pages of e-mail messages, transcripts and records describing years of private briefings, trips to Iraq and Guantanamo and an extensive Pentagon talking points operation.

The story based on these documents (Behind Military Analysts, the Pentagon's Hidden Hand By David Barstow, New York Times, April 20, 2008) is supplemented online by "Audio, video and documents that show how the military’s talking points were disseminated" (How the Pentagon Spread Its Message and a "Document Archive," which allows users to read and download documents and parts of documents. Of the 8000 pages, only a few are available online, but these include emails, a "Talking Points Memo," excerpts from a Transcript of meeting with Mr. Rumsfeld, and a Pentagon document that reports "Monitoring of Analysts."

Together, the audio-visual presentation and the documents are a small model for how newspapers could be using the power of the web to enhance their coverage and utility. I would certainly like to see all 8000 pages online!

The story itself is a fascinating glimpse behind the scenes of the daily news.

Internal Pentagon documents repeatedly refer to the military analysts as "message force multipliers" or "surrogates" who could be counted on to deliver administration "themes and messages" to millions of Americans "in the form of their own opinions."

...Analysts have been wooed in hundreds of private briefings with senior military leaders, including officials with significant influence over contracting and budget matters, records show. They have been taken on tours of Iraq and given access to classified intelligence. They have been briefed by officials from the White House, State Department and Justice Department, including Mr. Cheney, Alberto R. Gonzales and Stephen J. Hadley.

The McClatchy Newspapers have reported on a new National Defense University report on the Iraq war.

• Pentagon institute calls Iraq war 'a major debacle' with outcome 'in doubt', Jonathan S. Landay and John Walcott, McClatchy Newspapers, April 17, 2008. "The war in Iraq has become "a major debacle" and the outcome "is in doubt" despite improvements in security from the buildup in U.S. forces, according to a highly critical study published Thursday by the Pentagon's premier military educational institute."
• Choosing War: The Decision to Invade Iraq and Its Aftermath, by Joseph J. Collins, Institute for National Strategic Studies, Occasional Paper 5, National Defense University Press, Washington, D.C. April 2008. "Measured in blood and treasure, the war in Iraq has achieved the status of a major war and a major debacle."

Dr. Joseph J. Collins has been Professor of National Security Strategy at the National War College since 2004. Prior to this assignment, he served for 3 years as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Stability Operations. From 1998 to 2001, Dr. Collins was a Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, where he researched economic sanctions, national security policy, and homeland security. In 1998, after nearly 28 years of military service, Dr. Collins retired from the U.S. Army as a colonel. His many publications include books and articles on war in Afghanistan, Operation Desert Storm, military culture, defense transformation, homeland defense, and the way ahead in Iraq. Dr. Collins holds a bachelor’s degree from Fordham University and two master’s degrees and a doctorate in political science from Columbia University. In 2004, he was awarded the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service, its highest civilian award.

NDU Press publications are sold by the U.S. Government Printing Office. National Defense University Web site: http://www.ndu.edu.

See also: The Army Monograph that Predicted Just About Everything that's Happened in Iraq.

Last month we posted a story about the Iraqi Perspectives Report being available only by mail from the U. S. Joint Forces Command. Lo and behold, today I received a CDROM in the mail with the 5 volumes of the report in PDFs. I just uploaded the whole thing to the Internet Archive. Catalog away!!

Iraqi Perspectives Report Saddam And Terrorism: Emerging Insights From Captured Iraqi Documents. January 2007. IDA Paper P-4287. 5 volumes.

The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) now has online all five volumes of the Iraqi Perspectives Project report, which the Department of Defense (DoD) refused to put online.

• The announcement: DoD Report on Captured Iraqi Documents by Steven Aftergood, Secrecy News, March 20, 2008.
• The five volume report: Iraqi Perspectives Project Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents (Redacted) Institute for Defense Analyses November 2007 (released March 2008)

ABC News is reporting that the Pentagon canceled plans to post a new comprehensive military study of Saddam Hussein's links to terrorism on the website of the Joint Forces Command. The story says, "The report will be made available only to those who ask for it, and it will be sent via U.S. mail from Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Virginia. It won't be emailed to reporters and it won't be posted online." The Pentagon also canceled plans to send out a press release announcing the report's release.

• Pentagon Report on Saddam's Iraq Censored?, ABC News: Rapid Report March 12, 2008.
• Report Shows No Link Between Saddam and al Qaeda, ABC News: Rapid Report, March 13, 2008.

The report was prepared by Kevin M. Woods and James Lacey "under the Iraqi Perspectives sub task of the Joint Advanced Warfighting Program (JAWP) task order for the Director, Joint Center for Operational Analyses and Lessons Learned, United States Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM)" and the Institute For Defense Analyses. It is based on the analysis of some 600,000 official Iraqi documents seized by US forces after the invasion and on thousands of hours of interrogations of former top officials in Saddam's government in U.S. custody.

The executive summary of the report says

This study found no "smoking gun" (i.e., direct connection) between Saddam's Iraq and al Qaeda. Saddam's interest in, and support for, non-state actors was spread across a variety of revolutionary, liberation, nationalist, and Islamic terrorist organizations.

The ABC report says that when asked why the report would not be posted online and could not be emailed a Pentagon official said initial press reports on the study made it "too politically sensitive."

ABC has posted a copy of an executive summary of the document here:

• Iraqi Perspectives Report Saddam And Terrorism: Emerging Insights From Captured Iraqi Documents Volume 1 (Redacted) January 2007. IDA Paper P-4287. (9 pages, 3.4 Meg PDF) [another copy is available at www.webcitation.org/5WJZa7Cuc]

ABC also has a copy of a longer version of what is apparently the same report here:

• Iraqi Perspectives Project Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents Volume 1 (Redacted) "This volume is a redacted version of Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents, Volume I (IDA Paper P-4151). November 2007 Approved for public release; distribution unlimited. IDA Paper P-4287 Log: H 07-001575 ( 94 page, 11.7 Megs, PDF) [another copy is available at www.webcitation.org/5WJaXglxS]

"In October 2002, the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute, in coordination with the Office of the Army Deputy Chief of Staff/G-3, initiated a study to analyze how American and coalition forces can best address the requirements that will necessarily follow operational victory in a war with Iraq." Thus says the foreward of the monograph that is available from the Strategic Studies Institute of the the U.S. Army War College.

• Reconstructing Iraq: Insights, Challenges, and Missions for Military Forces in a Post-Conflict Scenario, February 2003, by Dr. Conrad C. Crane and Dr. W. Andrew Terrill.

There is an excerpt and a bit more about the authors at:

• The Army Monograph that Predicted Just About Everything that's Happened in Iraq, History News Network, March 10, 2008.

From the foreward of the monograph:

In October 2002, the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute, in coordination with the Office of the Army Deputy Chief of Staff/G-3, initiated a study to analyze how American and coalition forces can best address the requirements that will necessarily follow operational victory in a war with Iraq. The objectives of the project were to determine and analyze probable missions for military forces in a post-Saddam Iraq; examine associated challenges; and formulate strategic recommendations for transferring responsibilities to coalition partners or civilian organizations, mitigating local animosity, and facilitating overall mission accomplishment in the war against terrorism.

The Strategic Studies Institute organized an interdisciplinary team under the leadership of Dr. Conrad C. Crane and Dr. W. Andrew Terrill. The team’s initial findings were vetted at a joint and interagency workshop conducted in December. The final report of the project consists of three parts: a discussion of historical insights from 20th century postwar occupations and post-conflict operations; an analysis of the unique challenges Iraq will present for an occupying power; and a mission matrix that lists 135 specific tasks that must be performed to build and sustain a state. The matrix arrays those tasks across four phases of occupation and designates whether coalition military forces or civilian agencies should perform them.

There is a new report from the Democratic Caucus, U.S. House of Representatives, entitled "America At Risk: Despite Continued Warnings... America's readiness continues to slide."  The 7-page pdf summarizes how the cost of the war in Iraq is straining the budget and affecting the preparedness of the military to protect the country from domestic attack.  It includes reports about how budget cutbacks are affecting the National Guards of individual states.

hat tip: beSpacific!

Researchers at The Center for Public Integrity and the Fund for Independence in Journalism have assembled a full-text database of every public statement made by eight top Bush administration officials from September 11, 2001, to September 11, 2003, regarding (1) Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction and (2) Iraq's links to Al Qaeda.

The database was assembled from official government publications, news accounts, books, and more. Sources include the websites of the White House, State Department, and Defense Department, transcripts of interviews and briefings, texts of speeches and testimony, prepared statements, articles from major newspapers, transcripts of television programs, government studies or reports, and books.

• Searchable database
• Overview of the Project
• methodology

The "Overview" of the research says that

President George W. Bush and seven of his administration's top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

Press coverage:

• Study: False statements preceded war by Douglass K. Daniel, Associated Press, Jan 23, 2008.
• Web Site Assembles U.S. Prewar Claims by John H. Cushman Jr., January 23, 2008

The Fund for Independence in Journalism, is a nonprofit, tax exempt organization "created to foster independent, high quality public service journalism in the United States and around the world." It provides legal defense and endowment support for the Center for Public Integrity, The Center for Public Integrity is a nonprofit organization "dedicated to producing original, responsible investigative journalism on issues of public concern. The Center is non-partisan and non-advocacy."

US auditor queries military Iraq casualty figures, Yahoo! News, Sep 7, 2007

An independent US government auditor on Friday cast doubt on US military statistics expected to show a huge dip in sectarian violence in Iraq under the current troop surge strategy.

Comptroller General David Walker said there was a "significant difference" of approach between the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which he heads, and Pentagon evaluations of violence in Iraq....

"We could not get comfortable with (the military's) methodology for determining what's sectarian versus nonsectarian violence," Walker told senators....

Walker was unable to go into further details, as the rest of the GAO's conclusions in the report on sectarian violence have been declared secret by the Pentagon, and urged senators to read the classified version of the study.

CBO's report on the costs of US operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and other related activities (CBO Testimony) states that overall expenditures exceed 600 billion dollars. Their analysis also includes expenditures which aren't explicitly budgeted for this purpose such as Veteran's Administration expenditures.

I'm sure every library in the country has a copy or three of the Iraq Study Group Report but here's a fascinating remix of the report by Lapham’s Quarterly in association with the Institute for the Future of the Book. The project brought together a "quorum of informed sources (historians, generals, politicians both foreign and domestic) to add marginal notes and brief commentaries at any point in the text seeming to require further clarification or forthright translation into plain English."

Two Leaders: both were presidents. One was a leader, and the other was a dictator.

Gerald R. FordGerald Ford was the only president who was not elected. He was appointed vice president by Richard Nixon when Spiro Agnew resigned in the fall 1973. He became president by default when Nixon resigned in August 1974.

Gerald Ford is undoubtedly one of my favorite U. S. Presidents. He was an "every man" who took the reigns of the nation during the difficult time following Vietnam and the resignation of President Nixon. The leadership skills of this average man helped to heal many of our nation's wounds. Some of us wondered why he pardoned Nixon, yet perhaps it was this act of forgiveness that allowed our nation to heal and reunite.

By the bicentennial celebration in 1976, citizens were once again proud to be American. In a pub the evening of July 3, 1776 the band began playing "It's a Grand Old Flag," and the entire audience began singing. One man in our group had escaped from Eastern Europe the previous year, and was concerned the police would arrest us for that display. We were happy to inform him that in America we could celebrate our Nation's birthday, and not fear about repercussions from our government.

The Federal Government has designated Jan. 2 as an official day of mourning for former President Gerald R. Ford. Flags are flying at half-mast and most government offices will be closed on January 2nd. Ford's funeral service will be televised that day.

Read a biography of President Ford at The Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and Museum.
The Presidential Library and Museum recently posted a section of News, Special Events & Featured Pages on their home page.
Three image galleries contain 78 public domain photographs that chronicle the nation's 38th President.
No special permission or usage fees are required, but the library would like you to use the credit line included in the pop-up text for each photo.

Remembering Gerald R. Ford, July 14, 1913 - December 26, 2006 is a FirstGov.gov page with links to information about the former president.

Saddam Hussein
The Trial of Saddam Hussein at the Law Library of Congress provides essential information about the ongoing trials of the deceased Mr. Hussein, who was executed on December 30, 2006, for killing 148 men and boys in Dujail in 1982. .

The leader of Iraq from 1979 to 2003, Hussein gained infamy during the 1988 chemical weapon attack on Iraqui Kurds, as well as for his brutal tratment of his own citizens. A U. S. Department of State report, Saddam's Chemical Weapons Campaign: Halabja, March 16, 1988 descibes the mass murder which occured in the city of Halabja in 1988.

The White House issued a press release, President Bush's Statement on Execution of Saddam Hussein. Previously, the White House compiled theApparatus of Lies: Saddam’s Disinformation and Propaganda, 1990-2003 which chronicled the alleged attrocities of the Iraqui dictator for over a decade.

Saddam Hussein's Capture: One Year Later is a feature article in DefendAmerica the United States Department of Defense Official Website on the War on Terrorism.